The Little Piggy

East Garden restaurant is certainly a Little Piggy favourite for delivery Chinese. For all the years I've been ordering, I've never eaten in the physical restaurant, located on a residential street near Hillside and Cedar Hill road.

Like many restaurants who do  a large delivery business, they have a computerized system that tracks your phone number, (until you move or change phone numbers) they can pull up all your address and billing information from your previous order - while some may not like having their personal information tracked, it does make the ordering process smooth and efficient.

We were told, as always, that the order would be 40 minutes - it arrived in 20 min. Super fast, but so fast I didn't have time to cook any rice. It would have been nicer if they just told me how long it was really going to take. The delivery driver was polite and quick to get the food in the door.

Our vegetable chow mein had many more vegetables than I had expected including zucchini, broccoli and red pepper ($6.95).  The noodles were not too greasy and were moderately seasoned. It's worth noting that East Garden has an extensive vegetarian list (26 items).

We had our usual ginger-fried beef ($8.95). Always a favourite, it was gingery, with lots of vegetables and tender meat, but also pleasantly chewy in that mysterious 'ginger-fried' way.

Ryan proclaimed the diced chicken with red dry pepper and peanuts ($9.50) his favourite dish. Good flavour, tender chicken and a notable amount of heat from the chillies.

For a change we had the Ma Po Tofu Hot Bean Curd with minced pork ($7.50). I had seen similar things in Chinese cook books and I was curious, but didn't really know what to expect. It was great and I would definitely order it again. The the tofu provided nice contrast to the rest of the dishes and the pork provided texture contrast with the tofu.

The sweet and sour pork ($8.95) is a staple of any Chinese meal eaten in your living room. The pork was tender and hot and accompanied by the sauce on the side, ensuring a crispy presentation.

Ryan, Patty and I all enjoyed our meal and for around $45 were all stuffed, leaving one la

  Reviewed: March 13. 2006